The Suicide Club (20 page)

It was a Saturday afternoon and I had gone into town to do some Christmas shopping. It was whilst I was out that, out of the blue, I saw Jenny.

‘Hey,' I beamed enthusiastically. I loved it when I accidentally bumped into people I knew. Back in the old days, before all my old friends deserted me, this sort of thing happened all the time.

‘Hey you,' she drawled.

I noticed that the sleeves of her hoody were rolled up and that she was wearing bright sweatbands with rainbow stripes. She was carrying her camera, attached to a tripod.

‘So you're on a photography outing,' I said.

She looked at her camera and lifted it.

‘I guess so.'

‘What are you taking photos of ?'

‘Freddy wants some pictures to take home with him in the summer so I said I'd do it.'

‘Really?'

‘Uh-huh,' she said, and nodded quickly with wide-open eyes and a smile.

‘So what, you're just taking pictures of people?'

‘Yup. And the buildings in the background. I've got a long shutter-speed so, you know, the buildings will be still and the people'll come out all blurred and weird.'

‘I love blurred and weird.'

‘You are blurred and weird, Richie.'

It didn't surprise me that she would do something like this. She was such a kind person. There was nothing contrived about her kindness – it was just an innocent, naive outlook that resulted in doing nice things for people.

I smiled.

‘So what's a shutter-speed?'

‘Oh,' she said, happy that I was taking an interest in her hobby. ‘Shutter-speeds are like, how long you have the shutter open on a camera?'

I nodded, not really understanding, to tell you the truth.

‘OK, when you take a photo you push the button on the top, yes?'

‘That's the technical term? The “button on the top”?'

Smiling, she said, ‘Yes, Richie, that's the technical term. So anyway, when you press the button, the shutter is opened. When that happens, light is flooded on to the film inside the camera, right? If you let too much light in, the film gets overexposed and is ruined so the camera has automatic settings so it can't happen. But if you keep the shutter open for just a
little
bit longer, you let more light in and whatever's in your frame will be taken over a longer period, you know, just a second longer or so.'

‘So, what, normal shutter-speed is a fraction of a second?'

‘Right. But what it means is that if you photograph something that's moving while you have a long shutter-speed, the photo will come out with that movement.'

‘What?'

She laughed.

‘You know when you see those photos of roads at night and there's bright-red lines running down the roads from the car tail lights? Well, those are taken with long shutter-speeds. Because the car is moving while the shutter is open, the light hitting the film is
changing
and the red lights are caught as one continuous line. Get it?'

‘Not really.'

She blew out air in exasperation and put her hands on her hips.

‘I'll show you what I mean when I get my pictures back.'

‘I look forward to it.'

‘So what are you doing?'

I pushed my hands into my pockets.

‘Christmas shopping.'

Jenny was squinting to see me because the sky was so bright. I had never realized how short she was before. She only came up to my neck.

‘Have you done yours?' I said.

Our eye-line was suddenly broken and she looked down.

I had inadvertently said something that had made everything awkward.

‘What? Tell me.'

‘It's nothing, it's stupid.'

‘Just tell me.' I crouched a little so that I was just below the level of her eyes, up into which I looked kindly.

‘My family don't buy each other presents.'

I laughed.

‘What? What's wrong with that? So you don't celebrate Christmas, who ca—'

‘No,' she interrupted. ‘We do celebrate Christmas. It's just that my parents have got this idea that it's become too commercialized and has lost its meaning.'

I made a bemused face.

‘Why is that embarrassing for you?'

Jenny sighed, still looking at the floor, clearly uncomfortable.

‘I don't know. They're just . . .'

‘Weird?' I offered.

She laughed.

‘I was going to say opinionated.'

Her dad was one of those military nerds, you know, like a normal nerd but more of a twat. A Strong Disciplinarian without really understanding anything about anything. Her mum didn't work because her father believed in ‘stay-at-homemoms'. I'd seen him once before and he had a flat-top haircut. Seriously, he did. ‘Sometimes going to war is necessary for the greater good,' I could imagine him saying from the head of his family dinner table as he helped himself to a spoonful of mashed potato. It was amazing that someone like Jenny had managed to come out of his household.

I didn't really know what to do. Jenny was embarrassed by what she had just said and that was just stupid. Far be it from me to offer advice, but I did anyway.

‘Why don't you just buy them something anyway? It's nice getting presents. Get them an Easter egg.'

She laughed.

‘I'm not joking,' I quipped. ‘Or get them one of those blue elephant gods with eight legs.'

Jenny tapped me playfully.

‘You're an idiot.'

‘My grades would suggest otherwise,' I retorted arrogantly.

This time she laughed really loudly and even kind of snorted.

‘Ugh,' I said. ‘How disgusting.'

She was laughing madly now like the awkwardness of a moment ago had heightened her senses. She punched me in the right-hand side of my chest.

‘Why don't you just ask Clare out?' she said.

I gasped. What the hell kind of a direction had this conversation just taken? It was like we had been driving through a dense city, turned a sudden corner and now we were in a beautiful forest. Was it that obvious that I liked her? My God. I stared at Jenny and thought, Fuck it. Before now I had never told anyone how I really felt about Clare but now was a time for honesty. She had just shared something with me so I was going to reciprocate. ‘It's difficult.'

‘What's so difficult about it?'

I don't normally like saying pathetic things, but I said this anyway.

‘Do you think she likes me?'

‘Honestly?'

‘Yeah.'

Jenny shrugged.

‘I don't know. I have kind of asked her for you—'

‘You what?' I said, shocked.

Jenny smiled.

‘You're welcome. But she never gives me a direct answer. So, honestly I don't know.'

‘We had an argument about a week ago. She hasn't really spoken to me since.'

‘Really? She hasn't said anything to me.'

This didn't actually surprise me. Clare had her other group of friends and Jenny wasn't a part of that. They had never really hung around together, apart from when it was with us. I looked at the sky and put my hands in my pockets.

‘I think she probably likes me,' I said jokingly. ‘Who wouldn't?'

Jenny laughed.

‘Richard Harper,' she said. ‘You'll be the end of me.'

ON THE NIGHT
of Monday, 20 December I was looking for my iPod but couldn't find it anywhere.

Toby was sat in the living room watching TV so I went to ask him about it.

‘You haven't seen my—'

‘Ssssh.' He held his hand up, keeping his eyes on the screen. On TV was a wildlife programme about those little desert-rat things called meerkats. They were all up on their hind legs looking out over the desert.

‘I was just going to ask if you were still available for a trip to the city on Thursday,' I said. The end of term was just days away.

‘I'll be there,' he said flatly.

It knocked me out of kilter. I expected him to have done something excited when I said that, not kept watching his documentary.

I sighed and left the house. As soon as I got out into the night the cold hit me. My ears suddenly froze so I pulled up my hood and headed across town. I was going to try the war memorial to see if anybody was about.

When I got there Clare was with her friends, which I didn't like at all. I thought about turning round and walking away but I was sure they had seen me and so I had no other option but to head into the vipers' den. As I approached they
started giggling but I just shook my head. Some of them were lounging on the steps like lions after a meal.

I had to go through the process of receiving a load of ‘Hiya, Riiiiich' taunts from the girls, but there's no point in getting annoyed with people like them. They had always been childish and talked to me in this way, even before the Bertie incident. These were the same girls that had led her to say,' My friends were right about you.'

I looked up at Clare. She was sat on the top step. I noticed that she had pulled her sweater sleeves right down over her hands so that only the ends of her fingers were visible and between those I saw that she was holding a cigarette. That made her even more attractive. She skipped up and bounced easily down the steps before throwing her arms round me and kissing my cheek.

‘Hi,' she cooed.

‘Hey,' I said warily. Something was up. This was the first time she had spoken to me since the night in her house when we had argued, so why was she being so nice? ‘What are you doing?'

‘Just playing a game,' she answered. The other girls laughed at that.

‘Listen,' I said. ‘I have to speak to you. Will you come with me?'

‘Where?'

From where I was standing, it felt like I was looking at a perfect photograph; one of those weird photos where every level is in sharp, crisp focus. In the foreground was Clare, and then her friends and the war memorial made up the middle ground, whilst the Christmas lights and passing cars filled the background. It was like reality had got sharper. Exquisite. When she said, ‘Where?' it was like it was in slow motion, but not really. It was more like something surreal, difficult to articulate. I guess it was like the neon from the lights were
fusing with my reality and making it all fake, but good fake. Like artificial lights. Do you know what I mean?

‘I don't know where,' I said. ‘Can we get a coffee?'

There are a lot of ornate coffee shops in my town, with crusty old books on shelves, because there are a lot of pseudo-intelligent people living there who think it's sophisticated to drink coffee. Which I guess it kind of is. But not if you go there thinking you're sophisticated and then talk about
shopping
!

Clare thought about it for a second and nodded. In a way I was glad of this coincidence. I had to try and clear the air and Mr Fate had said there you go to me.

We walked away from the group of girls. I wanted to ask Clare why she even bothered hanging around with such nasty people, but I didn't want her to flip out on me so I just grabbed a hold of her hand and made sure she didn't get run over when we crossed the road. Amazingly, she didn't pull away.

We went to this little place that has big windows so that we could look out on to the street. We both ordered a coffee and I looked at her.

She was slumped down in her chair.

‘So, Harper, what's up?'

I shrugged.

‘I just wanted a coffee.'

From where I sat I could still see the war memorial. The girls were still milling around, and messing with each other's hair and all that sort of thing.

‘That T-shirt you gave me is great,' I said. This was more awkward than I had thought it was going to be.

Clare didn't even answer me, her good mood having dissolved now that it was just us.

‘It's cold out?' I said it as a question to let her know that I was making an effort.

‘Are you looking forward to the Christmas party?' Clare said suddenly, and in a chipper voice.

It was turning into one of our games. I wondered if she was being like this to me, kind of distanced, for the same reason that she had had sex with a large number of boys – whatever that reason was.

‘This Wednesday? I suppose so.'

‘Are you going to dance with me?'

I closed my eyes and sighed.

‘You know how I hate that stuff.'

Clare shrugged.

‘But I like dancing. Don't you want to make me happy?'

The conversation was already over.

‘I'll make you happy when we get married. I promise,' I said.

She looked at me. It could go either way. Now that I was onboard with the game she might turn it around and become sullen again. All I could do was wait.

‘Will you buy me a castle?' she said.

‘I'll buy you a castle that goes up into the clouds and we'll live in a chamber at the top.'

‘I'll want a moat around it.'

‘Of course. I'll fill it with acid.'

Her eyes went wide with excitement. ‘And we can invite our friends round and when they turn up, you can take your bow and arrow and shoot them all from the tower, one by one.'

I laughed. ‘I'll grow roses in window boxes and do you know what will surround the castle for miles and miles?'

‘What?'

‘Ash. Nothing else will grow around us.'

We both started laughing, but I was hollow. I didn't want this sort of conversation at this point. It was a brilliant idea,
killing all of our friends and living in an evil castle, but it wasn't exactly healthy. In a way I was relieved that I didn't have to go through another argument, but in another way I felt bad because it was so fake. There was definitely something in the air between us, something unspoken, a heaviness.

Suddenly I saw a figure heading for the war memorial and my heart froze. Freddy. A mass of thoughts started piling through a bottleneck in my brain. Clare had been with Freddy and they hadn't called me? Did he see me coming and hide?